WEBVTT

00:00:00.000 --> 00:00:02.280 align:middle line:90%


00:00:02.280 --> 00:00:04.950 align:middle line:90%
Thank you, young man.

00:00:04.950 --> 00:00:07.110 align:middle line:84%
I spent most of my
lovely afternoon

00:00:07.110 --> 00:00:10.140 align:middle line:84%
in Tucson in Laynie
Browne's house writing

00:00:10.140 --> 00:00:12.120 align:middle line:90%
about membranes, so--

00:00:12.120 --> 00:00:14.610 align:middle line:90%
totally psychic.

00:00:14.610 --> 00:00:17.490 align:middle line:84%
Thank you to the Poetry
Center and to Laynie

00:00:17.490 --> 00:00:19.680 align:middle line:90%
for hosting me in her home.

00:00:19.680 --> 00:00:20.970 align:middle line:90%
It's lovely to be here.

00:00:20.970 --> 00:00:24.780 align:middle line:90%


00:00:24.780 --> 00:00:26.820 align:middle line:84%
I shall read tonight
from "Humanimal,"

00:00:26.820 --> 00:00:33.000 align:middle line:84%
which is a non-fiction
project based

00:00:33.000 --> 00:00:36.840 align:middle line:84%
upon the true story of two
girls, Kamala and Amala,

00:00:36.840 --> 00:00:41.880 align:middle line:84%
who were found living with
wolves in 1921 in India.

00:00:41.880 --> 00:00:45.600 align:middle line:84%
And I went there to India
and found the places

00:00:45.600 --> 00:00:48.120 align:middle line:84%
where they had been
kept, where they

00:00:48.120 --> 00:00:51.360 align:middle line:84%
were rescued when they were
found by a missionary called

00:00:51.360 --> 00:00:53.070 align:middle line:90%
Joseph Singh.

00:00:53.070 --> 00:00:54.540 align:middle line:90%
I found his house.

00:00:54.540 --> 00:00:58.320 align:middle line:84%
I found his grandson
and his great grandson,

00:00:58.320 --> 00:01:03.720 align:middle line:84%
and they gave me photographs
of the wolf girls.

00:01:03.720 --> 00:01:05.860 align:middle line:84%
And I went into the
jungle a little ways.

00:01:05.860 --> 00:01:11.400 align:middle line:84%
So some of this is more related
to filmmaking, and part of it,

00:01:11.400 --> 00:01:15.810 align:middle line:84%
I suppose, through scar
tissue, through the liquefied

00:01:15.810 --> 00:01:17.820 align:middle line:90%
form a body can take.

00:01:17.820 --> 00:01:20.730 align:middle line:84%
In certain parts the
wolf girls' bodies

00:01:20.730 --> 00:01:25.200 align:middle line:84%
connect to the bodies of my
father as a child in India.

00:01:25.200 --> 00:01:27.340 align:middle line:84%
So I'm going to read
it from various places.

00:01:27.340 --> 00:01:30.480 align:middle line:84%
So I don't know if it
will be clear where I am.

00:01:30.480 --> 00:01:33.132 align:middle line:90%


00:01:33.132 --> 00:01:33.780 align:middle line:90%
Oh, dear.

00:01:33.780 --> 00:01:35.970 align:middle line:90%
Can I borrow a clock, a watch?

00:01:35.970 --> 00:01:39.558 align:middle line:90%


00:01:39.558 --> 00:01:40.506 align:middle line:90%
Thank you.

00:01:40.506 --> 00:01:43.350 align:middle line:90%


00:01:43.350 --> 00:01:46.380 align:middle line:90%
It's 8:40 PM.

00:01:46.380 --> 00:01:48.720 align:middle line:84%
This will be all
over by 8:58 PM.

00:01:48.720 --> 00:01:51.390 align:middle line:90%


00:01:51.390 --> 00:01:52.280 align:middle line:90%
[INAUDIBLE]

00:01:52.280 --> 00:01:57.000 align:middle line:90%


00:01:57.000 --> 00:01:59.250 align:middle line:90%
Right.

00:01:59.250 --> 00:02:01.800 align:middle line:84%
There are two spaces
in which I took notes

00:02:01.800 --> 00:02:04.710 align:middle line:84%
for this project,
an investigation

00:02:04.710 --> 00:02:06.480 align:middle line:90%
of feral childhood.

00:02:06.480 --> 00:02:10.199 align:middle line:84%
I'm not sure if childhood
is the correct word.

00:02:10.199 --> 00:02:12.810 align:middle line:84%
The first space was
a blue sky fiction,

00:02:12.810 --> 00:02:16.140 align:middle line:84%
imagining a future
for a child who died.

00:02:16.140 --> 00:02:18.810 align:middle line:84%
The second space was
real in different ways,

00:02:18.810 --> 00:02:22.860 align:middle line:84%
a double envelope,
fluid digits, scary.

00:02:22.860 --> 00:02:25.410 align:middle line:84%
I was frightened,
and so I stopped.

00:02:25.410 --> 00:02:28.590 align:middle line:84%
There were two kiosks like
hard bubbles selling tickets

00:02:28.590 --> 00:02:29.850 align:middle line:90%
to the show.

00:02:29.850 --> 00:02:32.160 align:middle line:90%
A feral child is freakish.

00:02:32.160 --> 00:02:34.830 align:middle line:84%
With all my strength, I
pushed the glass doors

00:02:34.830 --> 00:02:37.680 align:middle line:84%
shut, ignoring the
screams of the vendors

00:02:37.680 --> 00:02:39.540 align:middle line:90%
inside, with a click.

00:02:39.540 --> 00:02:42.450 align:middle line:84%
I clicked the spaces
closed, and then,

00:02:42.450 --> 00:02:48.600 align:middle line:84%
because I had to, because the
glass broke, I wrote this.

00:02:48.600 --> 00:02:50.070 align:middle line:90%
"Humanimal 1.

00:02:50.070 --> 00:02:53.970 align:middle line:84%
Blue Sky Fiction
for a Future Child."

00:02:53.970 --> 00:02:57.330 align:middle line:84%
Balled up with her shaven
head and spine visible

00:02:57.330 --> 00:03:01.770 align:middle line:84%
through her skin, the wolf girl
was a singular presence, almost

00:03:01.770 --> 00:03:05.430 align:middle line:84%
butter yellow against the
granular fabric of the Kodak

00:03:05.430 --> 00:03:06.690 align:middle line:90%
paper.

00:03:06.690 --> 00:03:09.810 align:middle line:84%
When she died, it was
Easter, the hot, dry month

00:03:09.810 --> 00:03:12.090 align:middle line:90%
before monsoon.

00:03:12.090 --> 00:03:14.970 align:middle line:84%
Bowing to custom, the
priest covered her face

00:03:14.970 --> 00:03:18.220 align:middle line:84%
with marigolds, soaked
the stems with olive oil,

00:03:18.220 --> 00:03:20.460 align:middle line:90%
then lit a match.

00:03:20.460 --> 00:03:24.210 align:middle line:84%
Behind the graveyard was
a church, intensely white

00:03:24.210 --> 00:03:26.520 align:middle line:90%
in the pale pink day.

00:03:26.520 --> 00:03:29.310 align:middle line:84%
Behind the church
was the jungle.

00:03:29.310 --> 00:03:32.970 align:middle line:84%
At the edge of the jungle
was a seam, a dense shedding

00:03:32.970 --> 00:03:35.640 align:middle line:90%
of light green ribbons of bark.

00:03:35.640 --> 00:03:38.640 align:middle line:84%
A place where things
previously separate

00:03:38.640 --> 00:03:41.580 align:middle line:90%
moved together in a wet pivot.

00:03:41.580 --> 00:03:45.990 align:middle line:84%
I stood and walked
towards it in a dream.

00:03:45.990 --> 00:03:50.340 align:middle line:84%
Her eyes were grim, intensely
clarified against her charred

00:03:50.340 --> 00:03:52.950 align:middle line:90%
skin as she looked up.

00:03:52.950 --> 00:03:56.550 align:middle line:84%
Above her the trees were
dense with a dark green fruit

00:03:56.550 --> 00:03:58.770 align:middle line:90%
I could not identify.

00:03:58.770 --> 00:04:02.190 align:middle line:84%
In the minutes before
capture, the girl reached up,

00:04:02.190 --> 00:04:05.100 align:middle line:84%
her arms criss-crossing
rapidly beneath

00:04:05.100 --> 00:04:09.030 align:middle line:84%
the bleached low hanging
vines of the perimeter.

00:04:09.030 --> 00:04:12.030 align:middle line:84%
She was wearing a white
cotton dress shredded

00:04:12.030 --> 00:04:14.370 align:middle line:90%
at the sleeve and hem.

00:04:14.370 --> 00:04:16.529 align:middle line:84%
When I developed the
film in New Delhi,

00:04:16.529 --> 00:04:18.959 align:middle line:84%
the x-ray of a
marine skeleton was

00:04:18.959 --> 00:04:23.820 align:middle line:84%
superimposed on her left arm,
her elbow as thick as a knot.

00:04:23.820 --> 00:04:27.240 align:middle line:84%
I said it was cartilage--
the body incubating

00:04:27.240 --> 00:04:30.510 align:middle line:90%
a curved space, an animal self.

00:04:30.510 --> 00:04:33.900 align:middle line:84%
Instead of hands she had
four streaks of light.

00:04:33.900 --> 00:04:39.450 align:middle line:84%
An imprimatur, she
saw me and flinched.

00:04:39.450 --> 00:04:41.380 align:middle line:90%
Humanimal 2.

00:04:41.380 --> 00:04:44.280 align:middle line:90%
A matrix of fluid digits images.

00:04:44.280 --> 00:04:47.440 align:middle line:84%
Of children in the
underworld, An alphabet to

00:04:47.440 --> 00:04:49.080 align:middle line:90%
O a kind of mouth.

00:04:49.080 --> 00:04:54.990 align:middle line:90%


00:04:54.990 --> 00:04:57.090 align:middle line:90%
1.

00:04:57.090 --> 00:05:00.480 align:middle line:84%
The humanimal sky
is copper like lids.

00:05:00.480 --> 00:05:04.470 align:middle line:84%
Retrograde stars litter
this intimate metallic curve

00:05:04.470 --> 00:05:05.760 align:middle line:90%
above the jungle.

00:05:05.760 --> 00:05:07.590 align:middle line:90%
Can you see it?

00:05:07.590 --> 00:05:11.940 align:middle line:84%
A. All the branches
stir in their silver.

00:05:11.940 --> 00:05:13.560 align:middle line:90%
Like a liquid metal--

00:05:13.560 --> 00:05:14.970 align:middle line:90%
the jungle.

00:05:14.970 --> 00:05:17.670 align:middle line:90%
For her, the girl-- tenticular.

00:05:17.670 --> 00:05:21.060 align:middle line:84%
Does the skin crepe, where
her fingers are too wet,

00:05:21.060 --> 00:05:23.220 align:middle line:90%
trailing in the river?

00:05:23.220 --> 00:05:26.430 align:middle line:84%
This is what a child
does as in fairy tales.

00:05:26.430 --> 00:05:27.870 align:middle line:90%
This is walking.

00:05:27.870 --> 00:05:29.340 align:middle line:90%
I want to.

00:05:29.340 --> 00:05:31.560 align:middle line:90%
All branches fear life.

00:05:31.560 --> 00:05:33.120 align:middle line:90%
It pushes and pushes--

00:05:33.120 --> 00:05:33.900 align:middle line:90%
life.

00:05:33.900 --> 00:05:36.390 align:middle line:84%
Out to the tips
where the color is.

00:05:36.390 --> 00:05:39.150 align:middle line:84%
Does this happen
in Asian forests?

00:05:39.150 --> 00:05:42.810 align:middle line:84%
Does this tree say yes,
damaged by its yes,

00:05:42.810 --> 00:05:45.540 align:middle line:90%
to phloem, the food to the lips?

00:05:45.540 --> 00:05:49.170 align:middle line:84%
Of the branches where the
leaves are and thus a leaf girl,

00:05:49.170 --> 00:05:52.320 align:middle line:84%
leaping from branch
to branch in her dream

00:05:52.320 --> 00:05:58.020 align:middle line:84%
of being a girl and not this,
this other disastrous thing.

00:05:58.020 --> 00:05:59.820 align:middle line:90%
2.

00:05:59.820 --> 00:06:04.380 align:middle line:84%
Like automata, the trees
rise up in rows mechanically.

00:06:04.380 --> 00:06:08.760 align:middle line:84%
Because it's January we don't
see scat or paw marks or tufts

00:06:08.760 --> 00:06:12.490 align:middle line:84%
of blue hair caught in
the low lying branches.

00:06:12.490 --> 00:06:15.090 align:middle line:84%
This is tracking,
but the wolves,

00:06:15.090 --> 00:06:20.490 align:middle line:84%
wild black dogs with elongated
torsos, are deeper in.

00:06:20.490 --> 00:06:23.400 align:middle line:84%
The district forest officer
lifts a luminous skin

00:06:23.400 --> 00:06:26.610 align:middle line:84%
from a termite mound with
the snout of his rifle

00:06:26.610 --> 00:06:28.710 align:middle line:90%
and holds it up to show me.

00:06:28.710 --> 00:06:31.680 align:middle line:84%
When I reach out to gather
another section of the skin,

00:06:31.680 --> 00:06:33.900 align:middle line:90%
he stops my hand with his.

00:06:33.900 --> 00:06:37.170 align:middle line:84%
When I ask if snakes are
active at this time of year,

00:06:37.170 --> 00:06:38.970 align:middle line:90%
he says, Oh, no.

00:06:38.970 --> 00:06:40.225 align:middle line:90%
No, Madam.

00:06:40.225 --> 00:06:43.970 align:middle line:84%
The Indian Anaconda is not a
problem at this time of year.

00:06:43.970 --> 00:06:45.090 align:middle line:90%
Not at all.

00:06:45.090 --> 00:06:46.800 align:middle line:90%
No problem.

00:06:46.800 --> 00:06:49.620 align:middle line:84%
Nevertheless we
return in short order

00:06:49.620 --> 00:06:54.390 align:middle line:84%
to the Jeep with footage only
of a rudimentary perimeter

00:06:54.390 --> 00:06:56.790 align:middle line:84%
in which giant insects
have constructed

00:06:56.790 --> 00:07:01.800 align:middle line:84%
conical temples in the moist
ochre earth beneath the trees.

00:07:01.800 --> 00:07:04.740 align:middle line:84%
I want to stay, but the
filmmakers are stubbing out

00:07:04.740 --> 00:07:06.990 align:middle line:90%
their cigarettes in the dirt.

00:07:06.990 --> 00:07:10.404 align:middle line:84%
I didn't know the
jungle would be red.

00:07:10.404 --> 00:07:15.270 align:middle line:84%
B. I want to stand up,
but I can't do that here.

00:07:15.270 --> 00:07:18.300 align:middle line:84%
They would know I am a
wolf by my sore hips,

00:07:18.300 --> 00:07:20.460 align:middle line:90%
the look in my eyes.

00:07:20.460 --> 00:07:23.910 align:middle line:84%
At the edge of the garden
was a line of blue chalk.

00:07:23.910 --> 00:07:27.330 align:middle line:84%
My mother was waiting
there, waiting for me

00:07:27.330 --> 00:07:28.860 align:middle line:90%
in her dark coat.

00:07:28.860 --> 00:07:32.760 align:middle line:84%
In the dream I walk towards
her, and she stands up.

00:07:32.760 --> 00:07:36.060 align:middle line:84%
She opens up her
coat like two wings,

00:07:36.060 --> 00:07:41.910 align:middle line:84%
and I step into her cloth
heart, her cleft of matted fur.

00:07:41.910 --> 00:07:43.800 align:middle line:90%
3.

00:07:43.800 --> 00:07:45.060 align:middle line:90%
The girl.

00:07:45.060 --> 00:07:50.130 align:middle line:84%
I cannot retrieve even one foot
from her small leg, a tendon,

00:07:50.130 --> 00:07:52.730 align:middle line:90%
a nail, one eye.

00:07:52.730 --> 00:07:56.430 align:middle line:84%
I saw her grave in the city
where the edge had been.

00:07:56.430 --> 00:08:00.450 align:middle line:84%
In your city or where you grew
up, was there an overgrown

00:08:00.450 --> 00:08:01.560 align:middle line:90%
scrubland?

00:08:01.560 --> 00:08:03.540 align:middle line:90%
Was there a tree?

00:08:03.540 --> 00:08:08.370 align:middle line:84%
Imagine a dark tree like a lemon
tree, its fruit still green

00:08:08.370 --> 00:08:10.770 align:middle line:90%
and studded with green parrots.

00:08:10.770 --> 00:08:12.420 align:middle line:90%
The edge of sal.

00:08:12.420 --> 00:08:15.390 align:middle line:84%
Lemon and banana
plantings intermixed

00:08:15.390 --> 00:08:17.310 align:middle line:90%
with the regular blue.

00:08:17.310 --> 00:08:20.340 align:middle line:84%
It is blue leaves at
night and brown yellow,

00:08:20.340 --> 00:08:22.560 align:middle line:90%
or doubly green by day.

00:08:22.560 --> 00:08:25.620 align:middle line:90%
But it was day, but blue.

00:08:25.620 --> 00:08:28.800 align:middle line:84%
I put my hand on
her grave and waited

00:08:28.800 --> 00:08:32.820 align:middle line:84%
until I could feel the
rhythm faintly of breathing,

00:08:32.820 --> 00:08:36.210 align:middle line:90%
of a cardiac output.

00:08:36.210 --> 00:08:40.380 align:middle line:90%
C. Mist rose in cubes.

00:08:40.380 --> 00:08:44.350 align:middle line:84%
With hard fingers they
tore strips from my spine.

00:08:44.350 --> 00:08:44.850 align:middle line:90%
All.

00:08:44.850 --> 00:08:49.860 align:middle line:84%
Blond black fur All hair
from a previous life.

00:08:49.860 --> 00:08:51.750 align:middle line:90%
4.

00:08:51.750 --> 00:08:55.950 align:middle line:84%
Feral children are fatty,
complex, and rigid.

00:08:55.950 --> 00:08:58.290 align:middle line:84%
When you captured
the two children,

00:08:58.290 --> 00:09:01.260 align:middle line:84%
you had to brush the
knots out of their hair,

00:09:01.260 --> 00:09:04.650 align:middle line:84%
then scrape the comb
free of hard butter.

00:09:04.650 --> 00:09:06.720 align:middle line:90%
Descent and serration.

00:09:06.720 --> 00:09:07.590 align:middle line:90%
No.

00:09:07.590 --> 00:09:11.520 align:middle line:84%
I don't want to ask
primal questions.

00:09:11.520 --> 00:09:13.290 align:middle line:90%
5.

00:09:13.290 --> 00:09:16.830 align:middle line:84%
Kamala slips over the
garden wall with her sister

00:09:16.830 --> 00:09:20.850 align:middle line:84%
and runs on all fours
towards the complex horizon

00:09:20.850 --> 00:09:25.200 align:middle line:84%
between Midnapore and its
surrounding belt of sal.

00:09:25.200 --> 00:09:29.220 align:middle line:84%
The humanimal mode is one
of pure anxiety attached

00:09:29.220 --> 00:09:31.230 align:middle line:90%
to the presence of the body.

00:09:31.230 --> 00:09:35.550 align:middle line:84%
Two panicked children strain
against the gelatin envelope

00:09:35.550 --> 00:09:37.890 align:middle line:84%
of the township,
producing through

00:09:37.890 --> 00:09:40.620 align:middle line:90%
distention a frightening shape.

00:09:40.620 --> 00:09:43.860 align:middle line:84%
The animals see an
opaque, milky membrane

00:09:43.860 --> 00:09:47.280 align:middle line:84%
bulging with life and
retreat, as you would,

00:09:47.280 --> 00:09:49.020 align:middle line:90%
to the inner world.

00:09:49.020 --> 00:09:51.570 align:middle line:84%
I am speakiong to
you in January.

00:09:51.570 --> 00:09:53.370 align:middle line:90%
It is raining.

00:09:53.370 --> 00:09:56.660 align:middle line:84%
Amniotic, compelled
to emerge, the girls

00:09:56.660 --> 00:09:59.150 align:middle line:90%
are nevertheless reabsorbed.

00:09:59.150 --> 00:10:01.460 align:middle line:84%
I imagine them
back in their cots

00:10:01.460 --> 00:10:04.460 align:middle line:84%
illuminated by
kerosene lanterns.

00:10:04.460 --> 00:10:08.750 align:middle line:84%
I illuminate them in the colony,
the cluster of residences

00:10:08.750 --> 00:10:12.170 align:middle line:84%
including the home
around St John's.

00:10:12.170 --> 00:10:13.130 align:middle line:90%
No.

00:10:13.130 --> 00:10:15.830 align:middle line:84%
Though I've been there,
it's impossible for me

00:10:15.830 --> 00:10:17.990 align:middle line:90%
to visualize retrieval.

00:10:17.990 --> 00:10:23.630 align:middle line:84%
Chronologies only record the
bad days, the attempted escapes.

00:10:23.630 --> 00:10:27.080 align:middle line:90%
D. I was almost to the gate.

00:10:27.080 --> 00:10:30.890 align:middle line:84%
I was almost to the gate when a
hand reached out and pulled me

00:10:30.890 --> 00:10:36.050 align:middle line:84%
backwards by my hair, opening
my mouth to an O. The next day

00:10:36.050 --> 00:10:38.300 align:middle line:90%
I woke up with a raw throat.

00:10:38.300 --> 00:10:41.240 align:middle line:84%
The cook gave me
salt in warm water.

00:10:41.240 --> 00:10:44.630 align:middle line:84%
I waited until she was
gone, and then I bit it.

00:10:44.630 --> 00:10:47.450 align:middle line:90%
I bit my own arm, and I ate it.

00:10:47.450 --> 00:10:50.130 align:middle line:84%
Here is my belly
frosted with meat

00:10:50.130 --> 00:10:53.750 align:middle line:84%
Here are my eyes,
bobbling in a tin.

00:10:53.750 --> 00:10:55.640 align:middle line:90%
6.

00:10:55.640 --> 00:10:59.570 align:middle line:84%
It's Palm Sunday, and Kamala,
with the other orphans

00:10:59.570 --> 00:11:04.340 align:middle line:84%
in a dark, glittery crocodile,
walks from home to church.

00:11:04.340 --> 00:11:07.670 align:middle line:84%
Her two arms extend
stiffly from her body

00:11:07.670 --> 00:11:10.400 align:middle line:90%
to train them to extend.

00:11:10.400 --> 00:11:14.390 align:middle line:84%
Unbound, her elbows and wrists
would flex, then supinate,

00:11:14.390 --> 00:11:17.060 align:middle line:90%
like two peeled claws.

00:11:17.060 --> 00:11:21.740 align:middle line:84%
Wrapped, she is a swerve, a
crooked yet regulated mark.

00:11:21.740 --> 00:11:23.960 align:middle line:90%
This is corrective therapy.

00:11:23.960 --> 00:11:26.840 align:middle line:84%
The fascia hardening
over a lifetime

00:11:26.840 --> 00:11:32.900 align:middle line:84%
then split in order to reset
it, educate the nerves.

00:11:32.900 --> 00:11:37.520 align:middle line:84%
E. The cook fed us
meat of many kinds.

00:11:37.520 --> 00:11:41.120 align:middle line:84%
I joined my belly to the
belly of the next girl.

00:11:41.120 --> 00:11:44.720 align:middle line:84%
It was pink, and we
opened our beaks for meat.

00:11:44.720 --> 00:11:47.600 align:middle line:84%
It was wet, and we
licked the dictionary

00:11:47.600 --> 00:11:49.310 align:middle line:90%
off each other's faces.

00:11:49.310 --> 00:11:50.510 align:middle line:90%
7.

00:11:50.510 --> 00:11:52.730 align:middle line:90%
Is this the humanimal question?

00:11:52.730 --> 00:11:53.300 align:middle line:90%
No.

00:11:53.300 --> 00:11:56.330 align:middle line:84%
It's a disc transferring
light from corner

00:11:56.330 --> 00:11:58.550 align:middle line:90%
to corner of the girl's eye.

00:11:58.550 --> 00:12:01.340 align:middle line:84%
Like an animal tapetum,
the way at night

00:12:01.340 --> 00:12:06.230 align:middle line:84%
an animal, animal eyes glinting
in the room where he kept her,

00:12:06.230 --> 00:12:09.590 align:middle line:90%
his girl, deep in the home.

00:12:09.590 --> 00:12:10.820 align:middle line:90%
8.

00:12:10.820 --> 00:12:13.610 align:middle line:90%
Where is the future child?

00:12:13.610 --> 00:12:17.630 align:middle line:84%
Curled up with wolves, sub
red, the wolf girl's eyes

00:12:17.630 --> 00:12:19.190 align:middle line:90%
reflected light.

00:12:19.190 --> 00:12:23.570 align:middle line:84%
She was seven when her father
found her coiled in a den.

00:12:23.570 --> 00:12:28.460 align:middle line:84%
A tall extremely handsome father
sidetracked from his mission,

00:12:28.460 --> 00:12:32.540 align:middle line:84%
dressed in black despite the
heat, caught her in a bed sheet

00:12:32.540 --> 00:12:37.940 align:middle line:84%
and wrote, I cut a hole and
removed her from the cave.

00:12:37.940 --> 00:12:39.740 align:middle line:90%
8.

00:12:39.740 --> 00:12:43.160 align:middle line:84%
Your scars lit up,
then liquefied.

00:12:43.160 --> 00:12:47.630 align:middle line:84%
Lucidity, holographically, your
heart pulsed in the air next

00:12:47.630 --> 00:12:48.620 align:middle line:90%
to your body.

00:12:48.620 --> 00:12:52.220 align:middle line:84%
Then my eyes clicked
the photo into place.

00:12:52.220 --> 00:12:55.850 align:middle line:84%
Future child, in the time
you lived, in your arms

00:12:55.850 --> 00:12:57.770 align:middle line:90%
always itched and flaked.

00:12:57.770 --> 00:13:00.740 align:middle line:84%
To write this, the
memoir of your body,

00:13:00.740 --> 00:13:04.370 align:middle line:84%
I slipp my arms into the
sleeves of your shirt.

00:13:04.370 --> 00:13:10.330 align:middle line:84%
I slipp my arms into yours
to become four limbed.

00:13:10.330 --> 00:13:12.920 align:middle line:90%
And I should pause there.

00:13:12.920 --> 00:13:13.520 align:middle line:90%
Thank you.

00:13:13.520 --> 00:13:17.770 align:middle line:90%
[APPLAUSE]

00:13:17.770 --> 00:13:25.000 align:middle line:90%